


grief hath shaken

by kyrilu



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst, Multi, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>M designs Model 007 herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grief hath shaken

**Author's Note:**

> Model 006 is not Alec Trevelyan -- just a random OMC of mine, sadly. (I'm not familiar with the pre-Craig!Bond movies...yet.)

M designs Model 007 herself.

Eve tells her, “You’re getting sentimental.” She says this with a soft laugh, when she sees the automaton blink his eyes open, such a strange shade of blue, and distantly reminiscent of the old photograph of M’s husband. If Eve hadn’t known M for years, M would’ve given her a sharp frown or perhaps a reprimand, but instead M scoffs and keys in Model 007’s code on the panel on his neck.

Her hands form the beginnings of a Tennyson verse, and Eve smiles.

 

*

 

Model 007's hands are careful and precise, perfect for holding a gun, perfect for MI6’s work. M takes him out to the shooting range the first day, to see if his mechanisms have been coded in properly, and he picks up the gun, easy as anything, and fires a stream of bullets into the target’s centre.

This one is very human. Q branch is becoming quite good in personalizing their automatons; this one has a bit of heart in him when he bites out a snipy, “Is that good enough for you, ma’am?”

She says coolly, “Fair enough.”

She thinks this one will become her new favourite.

Eve watches them on the sidelines, and when they’re done, she invites Bond out for a drink, at a nearby pub. It’s customary for Eve and M to share a bottle of wine after the creation of a new double-o model; it’s not customary for the model to come along.

Model 007 crooks an eyebrow, puzzled, but agrees, evidently piqued. It’s not within any of his specific parameters, and if he was an older model, he’d have shown no particular emotion whatsoever.

 

*

 

While M teaches Model 007 how to shoot, the first thing that Eve teaches him is alcohol.

“Shaken or stirred?” Eve asks him, when he decides on a martini. The bartender waits for Model 007 to answer, and he’s probably wondering why a forty-or-so man doesn’t know how to order his own drinks.

“Shaken,” Model 007 says decisively, “not stirred.”

And M learns that this one has preferences on him -- unlike his predecessor, who was an utter wreck (a blank slate) -- and on missions, she hears him choose the same drink. She smiles at the familiarity of it all, and they slide into a routine of _Bond, James Bond_ (his human codename), _shaken, not stirred_ , and the hurried orders delivered into his ear, telling him what to do.

 

*

 

Double-o models are experts at MI6’s missions, because they’re built in such a way that they can easily pass, easily portray and replicate human emotions. They’re the most brilliant kind of spies and also the most enduring, because Model 007 has fast reflexes and a sensitive trigger finger and an advanced sense of strategy installed into the cortexes of his system.

Model 007 learns to be charming.

When he slides into a woman’s bed, warm words rolled from his tongue, Eve says, wry, “Well. I suppose he’s got himself another habit, then,” and M sighs and cuts the audio connection off.

“Moneypenny, this isn’t quite the time--”

“You’ve got to admit that he’s rather fit,” Eve continues.

M raises her eyebrows, places a hand counterpoint on Eve’s wrist. “We’re not going to do this again, Eve.”

Eve smiles ruefully, and says, “Yes, ma’am.”

 

*

 

The first automaton that Eve killed was Model 006, empty template of an automaton, but that, M knows, is because the Q branch were afraid of another Model 005 incident.

It was surprisingly simple, when it comes down to everything. Eve’s not quite suited to field work, since she left it ages ago to become part of administration, but she’s still got a steady hand on a gun.

Model 006 had dashed into M’s office with a dazed expression on his face. He was a sad sack of a thing -- sandy blond hair, dash of freckles on his nose, and empty, empty eyes, a dusty shade like a bluebird’s eggshell.

He’s faulty.

“My boy,” M calls him, softly. They’re all her boys when it comes down to it.

“ _But thou, go by_ ,” Eve breathes from behind him, fingertips brushing at his neck, at the panel above his ruffled suit collar.

He goes limp, paralysed. Eve finishes him off, a squeeze of her trigger finger from a small revolver, and Model 006 crumples, sparks flying around the bullet.

“Two in a row,” Eve says grimly, tucking the gun away. “Christ. Q branch isn’t going to be pleased.”

“I’ll design the next one myself,” M says.

Eve recites, “ _Go by, go by_ ,” under her breath, and M sees her fingers shaking. There are pinpoints of blood where she’d twisted her fingers in the machinery.

“Would you like me to--?”

“No,” Eve says. “Yes. Can you just--”

If Model 005 was here, he’d fill up the spaces with his stupid petty witticism and warm laughter, and he let them both touch him, easy as anything.

“Of course, my dear.”

M reaches out. Eve leans her cheek into the palm of her hand, and M wonders, like always, why she doesn’t balk from the wrinkles and the calluses from old guns and the inkstains. She wonders why this feels so _red_ like the colour of red wine shared over the dinner table. Because there’s a finality to this (like the blood that 005 does not have) and it’s rich like rose petals.

“Will that be me, next?” Eve whispers, and she angles her voice in that it can only be heard by M, imperceptible and fine and sharp, as accurate as her gun to a target.

In reply, M moves her hand down to Eve’s heart. _No_ , she wants to say. _No, you’re alive._

But she doesn’t say anything. She feels the beat of blood underneath Eve’s skin and curls her fingertips where her heart lies. She knows the right place; she remembers her husband so long ago, and then there was Eve and then there was--

“Tiago,” Eve says, a sober call into the night. “I--”

“It was a fair trade,” M says forcefully. “Q Branch needed the technology that the Chinese took from us. And we were getting too attached, and you recall the New York fiasco. A blindingly obvious situation there.”

“So said your cost-benefit analysis, I suppose.”

“This isn’t economics, Eve. This is about national security. You know the game’s changed ever since Russia started bringing in automatons into our trade. We have to keep up.”

Eve doesn’t say anything. Eve pulls away from M and studies the blood on her hands.

 

*

 

In New York, Model 005 takes a bullet for Eve. It meant losing one of their contacts in the process, but Model 005 had smiled blithely and said, _Mummy, I brought our darling home. Don’t be mad._

 _Don’t be mad_ , while pressing kisses to the side of her face, his hands balancing on her shoulders.

 _God damn you, Tiago,_ M had thought, but opened her neck so that he could press the lass kiss there, an invisible mark.

She doesn’t say thank you, but Model 005 reads it in her eyes when her fingers brush against Eve’s forearm later.

(Our darling is home, our darling is alive, our darling helps her betray you in a rain of bullets.)

 

*

 

But this is all the past. Now M puts circuitry into Model 007, easing a chip into Model 007’s neck. “There you are. Fixed. You should report to Q branch and see if there’s anything else they can do for you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. He straightens the back of his suit. His eyes had slanted neon blue before they closed, but they’re back to their usual colour.

“Thank you for staying still,” M says, in dismissal, and Model 007 quirks an eyebrow. He’s got quite the rebellious streak in him, from mute resistance to MI6 commands to outright denial of protocol, but in the end, he’s useful; in the end M will not allow him to be decommissioned.

(Model 007 is not going to become a box of scraps underneath her desk like Model 006. Model 007 will fight and withstand fire and fuck women and complete his missions and flirt with Eve like he’s dancing on a tightrope. Oh, he’ll _flirt_ with her too, but this is an extremely delicate game. There’s barely any progress in his brand of courting, only nuance, only words.)

If 005 was here, perhaps he’d like 007. Perhaps he’d mock and laugh and lay a teasing hand on the stretch of Bond’s thighs, because that’s exactly the sort of automaton _person_ he was. They’d balance out. James and Tiago, mirrored names and mirrored eyes.

Everything is unbalanced at the moment. A stream of Tennyson on the tip of M’s tongue to be wielded like bullets. Untouched wine and extravagant suits&ties and a hand like a miracle, and like freedom, and like awakening.

Automatons can sleep. They don’t need to, of course, but Tiago had looked up at her with questioning eyes, Eve curled at his side, and M touched the back of his hand and told him _sleep._

Bond looks at her like she’s his maker and master and saviour. Maybe that’s who she wants to be. Maybe she doesn’t want that any more.

 

*

 

Bond and Eve drink tea in front of her office, and M wonders at how young they look through a half-shuttered window. And then Eve pushes Bond back against the door, her mouth on his, savage and bitter and clothes shed all round.

They know she’s there; they know she can hear them.

It’s a surprise that nobody (beside M) catches them this way, and M holds her breath and listens to every last bit of sound like it’s important, the shell of her ear to the wall.

_Perhaps--_

 

*

 

And Bond falls into the water. He probably rusts, sparks, dies on the way down, a useless scrap of metal after all.

M doesn’t blame Eve for anything, but smiles at her with sad eyes and they go home. M takes a break from reading Tennyson and looks at other poets instead, even though much of it is utter nonsense.

On evenings, Eve and M sit before the fireplace and try to figure out how to read E.E. Cummings. It’s quite a trial, and M alternately pictures this scene if Tiago was here, if James was here.

But she’s content.

 

*

 

When Model 007 steals into her house through the window, he grins at her and says, “ _My will is bondsman._ ”

“You guessed, didn’t you?” M says. She shakes her head, looks fondly at him, this ridiculous automaton of hers.

“I hacked into Q branch’s system,” Bond says with a loping shrug of his shoulders. “I saw a pattern. I figured it out.”

“You can go, then,” she says -- an offer -- and he doesn’t.

He remarks, “You don’t look that surprised that I’m alive, ma’am.”

“You’ve done this before.”

“I have. But you didn’t believe this wasn’t an exception?”

“ _Thou shalt not be the fool of loss_ ,” M says, and he leans over to kiss her, as if to press the words into his mouth, an opening and a promise and a conclusion.

 

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is how I procrastinate, tbh. I planned to finish my Eve/M fic, but nope, I end up completing this one instead. Even though that one's for a kink meme fill, aghhh.
> 
> If there's an actual point to this story, I lost it somewhere down the line. But I wrote Bond/Eve/M and Eve/M/Silva with actualfax seriousness, whee.


End file.
